The Chinese Connection (1972)

November 8, 1972

The Screen: A Chinese 'Fist of Fury':Stark Tale of Revenge Opens at Pagoda Shanghai Is Setting for Kung-Fu Combats

By A. H. WEILER

Published: November 8, 1972

"Fist of Fury" landed with a bang and quite a few whimpers yesterday at Chinatown's Pagoda Theater to illustrate that some Orientals aren't particularly inscrutable. Despite a concentration on the rough Kung-Fu form of hand-to-hand combat and other vaguely exotic matters, this import from Hong Kong subtitled in English (and Chinese for the Cantonese who can't follow its Mandarin dialogue) proves as in, say, "Batman", that the bad guys don't stand a chance against the good guys.

Lo Wei, the writer-director, offers some lip service to national pride as the young members of the Chinese Kung-Fu school battle villainous Japanese trying to destroy their organization, although it's difficult to discern from the studio sets that it's all happening in 1908 Shanghai. In a simplistic story that is performed in similarly stark, obvious style, the hero, a master of Kung-Fu with a low boiling point, avenges the murder of his revered teacher with an éclat that would charm Superman.

Reportedly a box-office smash in the Orient, "Fist of Fury" is, in effect, Bruce Lee's personal dish of tea. And the handsome, 32-year-old actor, a reputed Kung-Fu expert with the muscular build of a welterweight champ, doesn't let the Kung-Fu lovers down. He is decidedly an eye-catching figure as he takes on all comers, singly or in whimpering groups, in stylized, Karate-like bouts with swift, balletic moves, baleful stares, deadly flying fists and legs and, of course, all the necessary eerie shouts.

He also has some moments of subdued, romantic dalliance with Miao Ker Hsiu, a Kung-Fu colleague who's a real doll by any standards. But Mr. Lee's heart is obviously elsewhere. The main thrust here is action, while he and the rest of the cast are fairly casual about love and national pride. And, while Chinese films are plentiful in Chinatown, the action here is as black-and-white and as pleasantly, if naively, diverting as that in any western even though it was all shot in vivid colors.